Getting Some Help

One of the downsides I did not foresee in allowing each skill to develop individually is that there is now a great deal less incentive for squishier party members to support their comrades-in-arms. In most games, combat is one of the few ways to gain that precious experience commodity (and usually leads to treasure), but combat in Prodigy does not directly offer players rewards. Because of this, the player playing the party's soldier expressed an interest in hiring a pirate goon squad as support.

When I started playing in Alexis's online game, I was surprised that so many of our characters came into the game with people who would fight with us but were not player-characters. I had never seen followers in any other game, period. Our game would be almost impossible without Willa, Valda, Fjall, and Bergthora (RIP, Petar), and acquiring three porters has helped the party quite recently out of a sticky situation. It's inspired a lot of how I think about the role(s) and challenges that player characters can take on, and I'm glad to now have a player prompting me to formulate the rules describing how my players can seek help.


Two skills impact finding and retaining hirelings and followers: Caravanner and Leadership. The Caravanner skill allows the character to find and employ hirelings more effectively, while the Leader skill attracts followers.

Hirelings are people following a character initially because the character is paying them. More highly-skilled individuals command higher rates. Followers, on the other hand, follow a character initially because they feel the leader is worth following. They do not require a monthly stipend, but they also have a lower morale.

Characters seeking to find a hireling will spend at least one day in a city or town looking for candidates. They spend the day(s) talking to their friends, contacts, and others who might know someone looking for a job. At the beginning of this period, the player will need to specify the kind of person(s) they seek. Followers cannot be discovered through this process.

Any character may search for a candidate in the following ways:
Each 1 day spent searching yields 1 person with 3 notches in randomly-determined skills.
Each pair of days spent searching yields 1 person with 3 notches, one of which is guaranteed to be in a specified type of skill (Mental, Physical, or Social)
Every 3 days spent searching yields 1 person with 3 notches, one of whom is guaranteed to have at least 1 notch in a selected skill and 1 notch in another skill of the same type.
A character who is at least an Apprentice Caravanner finds more success: instead of finding a single applicant, they will find an additional number of applicants per 2 notches, rounding down.

Additionally, Apprentice Caravanners may also search for Professionally-skilled people. These will have 2 notches in 2 skills of the same type or different type, determined randomly.
Each week spent searching yields 1 person who is a Professional in a skill of the specified type.
Every two weeks spent searching yields 1 person who is a Professional in the specified skill.
For every 3 notches the character possesses of Caravanner, an additional applicant appears at the end of the search period.

Caravanners with a higher rank will have more options when it comes to selecting applicants and will be able to mitigate hiring limitations (such as looking for folks while not in a major city), but I'll work on those rules later.


Leaders have the opportunity to gain followers whenever they gain a notch. When a character has gained a notch, the next time they spend at least a week in a city or other densely-populated area, they roll 1d3 per notch possessed. If that total is greater than the number of followers they currently possess, they gain followers equal to that difference.


Follower and hirelings expect that their employers will provide for food and lodging. Usually, they will act under the control of the hiring character's player, but they will refuse orders that appear nonsensical or suicidal. I use Alexis' morale rules because they are really good, with the slight alteration that 'combat training' refers to a notch in the Combatant skill.